This thesis is to inquire into the effect of group art therapy by way of reminiscence on the depression of the elderly inpatients with geriatric illness. The subjects are 20 inpatients whose age is over sixty in the Elderly Nursing Hospital located in K county. Among them, 10 inpatients are arranged as the experimental group, and the rest 10 inpatients, as control group. The research period is from February 28, 2009 to August 21, 2009. For the experimental group, the group art therapy by way of reminiscence is carried out during 21 sessions once a week for 60 minutes per session. For both the experimental group and the control group, pre and post test is carried out, and then after four weeks, the further test is carried out. The measurement tools are KGDS(Korean Form of Geriatric Depression Scale) and KHTP. The data are analyzed by SPSS(for Windows) and SAS(ver. 9.1.2), by which one-way ANOVA, two-way ANOVA, and Scheffe test are carried out. The results are as follows. First, the average of the whole elderly depression levels is shown significantly in the post test and the further test between the two groups. The art therapy group is more effective on the reduction of depression of the elderly inpatients with geriatric illness than control group. Second, it is shown that there is significant difference between the two groups in the the elderly depression by KHTP. The art therapy group is more effective in the improvement of the reduction of the elderly depression in view of KHTP. In conclusion, the group art therapy is an efficient intervention which enables to reduce the depression of the elderly inpatients with geriatric illness.